Anna Cianciolo, MA, PhD
Dr. Anna Cianciolo is a Full Professor of Medical Education at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine and Editor in Chief of Teaching and Learning in Medicine. She comes to medical education with PhD training in engineering psychology (2001 – Georgia Institute of Technology), 12 years’ experience conducting performance-based training research and development for the U.S. Army, and a lifelong passion for understanding the nature of expertise and its development.
Dr. Cianciolo works at an institution that is internationally recognized for educational innovation, where the curriculum offers a rich, “living laboratory” for studying the social and technological aspects of medical education collaboratively with faculty and students. Her role as Editor allows her special observability on the development of scholarly expertise, particularly the cultivation of individual voice and advancement of community understanding.
Her research interests include small-group collaborative and peer-assisted learning, clinical teaching, learning, and assessment, clinical reasoning, and scholarly professional development. Her work has been funded by the Society of Directors of Research in Medical Education (SDRME), the Harvard Macy Foundation, and the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). It has been published in Academic Medicine, Medical Education, and Medical Teacher, among other journals. She has served one and a half terms as the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Central Region Group on Educational Affairs (CGEA) Chair of the Medical Education Scholarship, Research, and Evaluation (MESRE) Section. In addition, she was honored as a CGEA Laureate in 2021 and was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society in 2025.
Dr. Cianciolo has been recognized by the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine as Outstanding Scholar (2016) and Outstanding Educator (2018) and by the Association for Medical Education in Europe (AMEE) as a Miriam Friedman Ben-David New Educator (2014).
Dr. Cianciolo's professional goal is to improve medical education by doing work that encourages and empowers medical educators to practice reflectively and, in so doing, make their world a better place for themselves, their learners, and their patients.